How I Survived A Chinese 'Re-education' Camp : A Uyghur Woman's Story

'An indispensable account' – Sunday Times 'Moving and devastating' – The Literary Review 'An intimate, highly sensory self-portrait' – Sunday Telegraph (Five Stars) FIRST MEMOIR ABOUT CHINA'A 'RE-EDUCATION' CAMPS BY A UYGHUR WOMAN Since 2017, one million Uyghurs have been seized by the Chinese authorities and sent to 're-education' camps, in what the US Government and human rights groups describe as a genocide. Few have made it out to the West. One is Gulbahar Haitiwaji. For three years, she endured hundreds of hours of interrogations, freezing cold, forced sterilisation, and a programme of de-personalisation meant to destroy her free will and her memories. This intimate account reveals the long-suppressed truth about China's gulag. It tells the story of a woman confronted by an all-powerful state bent on crushing her spirit – and her battle for freedom and dignity. Extract 'In the camps, the 're-education' process applies the same remorseless method to destroying all its victims. It starts out by stripping you of your individuality. It takes away your name, your clothes, your hair. There is nothing now to distinguish you from anyone else. 'Then the process takes over your body by subjecting it to a hellish routine: being forced to repeatedly recite the glories of the Communist Party for eleven hours a day in a windowless classroom. Falter, and you are punished. So you keep on saying the same things over and over again until you can't feel, can't think anymore. You lose all sense of time. First the hours, then the days.' - Gulbahar Haitiwaji Reviews 'Gulbahar's memoir is an indispensable account, which makes vivid the stench of fearful sweat in the cells, the newly built prison's permanent reek of white pain. It closely corresponds with other witness statements, giving every indication of being very reliable. Most impressive is her psychological honesty.' – John Phipps, Sunday Times 'Huge efforts have been made to obfuscate the realities of life in the camps (even speaking openly in Xinjiang about them can lead to incarceration). Although their existence has been well documented abroad and grudgingly admitted by the Chinese state, relatively few first-hand accounts of what actually goes on inside them have emerged. One is Gulbahar Haitiwaji's moving and devastating How I Survived a Chinese 'Re-education' Camp.' – Roderic Wye, Literary Review 'There follows an intimate, highly sensory self-portrait, created with the help of Rozenn Morgat (a journalist with Le Figaro), of an educated woman passing through a system that appears at turns cruel, paranoid, capricious and devastatingly effective. It begins with the confiscation of Haitiwaji's passport and a police interrogation during which she is shown a photograph of her daughter attending a Uyghur demonstration in Paris. One of the interrogators starts bawling at her - "Your daughter's a terrorist!" and before long Haitiwaji is plunged into a bewildering world of shackles, bunks and beaten-earth floors; grey gruel and stale bread served up by deaf-mute cooks selected for their silence; the sounds and smells of the communal toilet-bucket; and the buzz of security camera motors as they scan the cell.' ***** – Christopher Harding, Sunday Telegraph Translated from the French book Rescapée du goulag chinois (Équateurs), How I Survived a Chinese Reeducation Camp is a riveting insight into an authoritarian world. A true story, it reads like a 21st Century version of George Orwell's 1984 set in modern China. First-hand Account Of Life Inside China's Prison Camps I Have Written What I Lived. The Atrocious Reality. --gulbahar Haitiwaji To Paris Match For Three Years, She Endured Hundreds Of Hours Of Interrogation, Torture, Hunger, Police Violence, Cold, And Rats. Her Name Is Gulbahar Haitiwaji And She Is The First Uyghur Woman Survivor Of Chinese Re-education Camps To Give A Connected And Detailed Account Of What Happens There. The Camps Are China's Equivalent Of The Gulag In Stalin's Russia. Since 2017, They Have Been 'home' To More Than A Million Uyghurs. The Uyghurs Are A Turkish-speaking Muslim Ethnic Group In The Western Region Of Xinjiang, Which Is Coveted By The Chinese Communist Party Because It Is Located On The 'new Silk Roads' - The Flagship Project Of President Xi Jinping. A Bipartisan Commission Of The United States Congress Says China's Treatment Of The Uyghurs Is So Appalling It May Amount To 'genocide.' The Chinese Communist Party Says The Camps Are Part Of 'the Total Fight Against Islamic Terrorism, Infiltration And Separatism.' Gulbahar's Testimony Is Chilling: She Starkly Recounts Her Experiences In The Chinese Camp System And How She Was Saved Thanks To The Intervention Of Her Daughter And The French Foreign Ministry. This Rare Account Of Life Inside China's Gulag Is Visceral And Internationally Important. In The Camps, The Re-education Process Is Systematic In That It Applies The Same Remorseless Method To Destroying All Its Victims. It Starts Out By Stripping Them Of Their Individuality. It Takes Away Your Name, Your Clothes, Your Hair. There Is Nothing Now To Distinguish You From Anyone Else. Then The Process Takes Over Your Body By Subjecting It To A Hellish Routine: Being Forced By Teachers To Unendingly Recite The Glories Of The Communist Party For Eleven Hours A Day In A Windowless Classroom. Falter, And You Are Punished. So You Keep On Saying Them Same Things Over And Over Again Until You Can't Feel, Can't Think Anymore. You Lose All Sense Of Time: First The Hours, Then The Days. Since 2017, more than one million Uyghurs have been deported from their homes in the Xinjiang region of China to "reeducation camps." The brutal repression of the Uyghurs, a Turkish-speaking Muslim ethnic group, has been denounced as genocide, and reported widely in media around the world. The Xinjiang Papers, revealed by the New York Times in 2019, expose the brutal repression of the Uyghur ethnicity by means of forced mass detention­--the biggest since the time of Mao. Her name is Gulbahar Haitiwaji and she is the first Uyghur woman to write a memoir about the 'reeducation' camps. For three years Haitiwaji endured hundreds of hours of interrogations, torture, hunger, police violence, brainwashing, forced sterilization, freezing cold, and nights under blinding neon light in her prison cell. These camps are to China what the Gulags were to the USSR. The Chinese government denies that they are concentration camps, seeking to legitimize their existence in the name of the "total fight against Islamic terrorism, infiltration and separatism," and calls them "schools." But none of this is true. Gulbahar only escaped thanks to the relentless efforts of her daughter. Her courageous memoir is a terrifying portrait of the atrocities she endured in the Chinese gulag and how the treatment of the Uyghurs at the hands of the Chinese government is just the latest example of their oppression of independent minorities within Chinese borders For three years, Gulbahar Haitiwaji disappeared into a secret network of jails. Now, she is the first female Uyghur survivor to give a connected and revealing account of life inside China's brainwashing 're-education' camps. Her account reads like a modern version of 1984. It tells the story of a woman confronted by an all-powerful state bent on crushing her spirit - and her struggle for freedom and dignity Gulbahar Haitiwaji is the first Uyghur woman survivor China's re-education prison camps to give a personal account of the reality of life inside their walls. This rare trip into China's barbarous gulag is visceral and internationally important